After OnMilwaukee.Com reported on a giant harassing message in the snow outside former Governor Scott Walker’s residence, a liberal website pulled down an article that indicated the location of Walker’s new residence in Milwaukee.
Molly Snyder, writing for OnMilwaukee.com, found a post on Reddit (warning, rough language) with a picture of the message in the snow.
Photo on Reddit of message written in the snow outside of former Governor Scott Walker’s apartment building.
“Yikes, that’s not very neighborly,” Snyder wrote.
The snow writing appeared after Walker’s residence was featured in an article on Urban Milwaukee, a liberal news site edited by Bruce Murphy. The article originally included the address and location of the building where Walker now resides, a decision that Murphy called an error.
“We made a mistake. Our policy is we never run an address,” Murphy responded in an email to our inquiry at the time the article ran. “We noticed the error around noon today and removed the address at 12:21 p.m. Fortunately the story did not include the condo number. But still a mistake we very much regret.”
However, the article also ran a photo of the building by Urban Milwaukee president and co-founder Jeramey Jannene with the name of the building in the caption. The description of the location of the building along with the picture would make Walker’s residence easy to find using Google maps. Murphy removed the name of the building from the article, but the location description and the photo remained. The article also continued to have a link to another website that gave away Walker’s address.
During Walker’s two terms in office, the governor and his family were repeatedly threatened and harassed. Democrats actually organized buses to bring protesters to his home in Wauwatosa the day the recall petitions began circulating, and at one point the Wauwatosa police actually had to block off access to Walker’s street.
Now that Walker is a private citizen, he no longer has a state-provided security detail to protect him and his family. Given the past threats to his family’s safety, one would think even left-leaning publications would be sensitive about publishing information identifying his home. However, those concerns did not stop Urban Milwaukee, and commenters on Reddit noted approvingly of where someone could find Walker’s address on Urban Milwaukee.
Murphy did not respond when asked by RightWisconsin about the harassing message outside the building where the Walkers reside.
“This is all very disturbing to us and we are concerned about the Walker’s safety and welfare. No one deserves this treatment,” said Mario Costantini, the owner of the residence the Walkers are renting, in an email to RightWisconsin. “The issue is not just about us, but about the toxic and hateful discourse which is promoted by these type of articles in Urban Milwaukee. We completely support Urban Milwaukee’s right to express their political views, whatever they may be, but we reject the intrusive, insulting, and unethical manner in which they do so.”
Costantini noted that as recently as Sunday the Urban Milwaukee article was being touted on the website’s “Hot Topics” email to readers. “Our recourse is to encourage others to unsubscribe and not to advertise in Urban Milwaukee, as we have done already,” Costantini said before Urban Milwaukee’s decision to pull the article down on Monday. “We will also hold Urban Milwaukee responsible if any harm should come to the Walkers, or if we lose the Walkers as tenants.”
Murphy and Michael Horne, the author of the Urban Milwaukee article for the “House Confidential” series, did not respond to requests for a quote about their decision to pull down the article on the Walker residence.
